How The Chips are Falling

RotN on the Campaign Trail
Peter Benjamin Johnson
Democratic Correspondent

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Peter-

Where have you been? We need another piece. You haven't written anything, but I can't help but notice that you keep charging expenses to PIC. I thought it was understood that we can only offer you the bare minimum in terms of funding, and that funding has to be per diem. Simply put, we can't give you more money just because you feel like trashing a hotel room. I've directed all inquiries about damages and billing to your cell. I can't deal with them anymore.

Get me an article and maybe I'll reconsider.

-Jake Christie

Dearest editors, debt collectors, readers, interested parties, etc.,

Fuck you.

I'm sitting in a hotel room in North Carolina. I've been on the road, or in the sky, or packed into town halls, or shivering in an empty bathtub, every hour of every day since Super Tuesday. Just now I was trying to sleep, but the couple in the room next to me is copulating and my duty to you calls.

You seem to be under the misguided impression that what I do is easy. Being a political correspondent is more like being a war reporter than it is like writing for the New York Times Book Review (though I have met some people from that camp who have not come out the other side, who have the thousand-yard stare, unable to reconcile what they know is good and decent in the world with what happened between themselves and Cormac McCarthy or Dave Eggers at a book signing or literary retreat). Political correspondents don't get to set their own schedules; no, we travel with the troop movements, flying from this airport to that, climbing on and off of transports, shuffling along in the mess of human matter that is political participation. For a country that can't, for the most part, find the energy to vote in actual real life elections, America certainly does like to make a big show of it.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't admit to some of my own failings. I made promises that I would provide coverage and analysis and some would say that I have broken those promises to you, my readers and paymasters. I admit to none of this. I am a very remiss individual. Some people can't even believe how remiss I am, and take time out of their days to comment on it. "How remiss he is," they say. I'm so remiss that sometimes I can't even believe it. But I'm also an Important Journalist, and if the media has taught me anything, it's that we admit to nothing. I don't make mistakes, I make headlines.

But here it is: McCain's got the Republican nomination tied up in a pretty but unerringly masculine bow, and Obama and Clinton are duking it out for the Democratic nod. Neither of them is going to win it by a landslide; that's an impossibility in terms of mathematics and public opinion. Superdelegates are going to make the difference, but it will be some time before they have to pledge their votes. Obama and Clinton are going through the motions, now, treading water and trying to keep what momentum they have to prove that they deserve the party's support.

Pennsylvania is the next big primary, and Clinton's trying desperately to hold on to her lead. It's expected that she'll win, but by how much? Obama's proven adept at stealing voters right out from under her, and a strong showing in Pennsylvania could help him almost as much as an outright win. This is the only explanation I can find for why he went bowling in Latrobe last week. Watching him throw a bowling ball was like watching Britney Spears spend time with her kid, or Hillary Clinton dodge sniper fire in Bosnia; it just wasn't happening. Granted, he'll probably have someone in his cabinet who can knock down a seven-ten for him, but embarrassing himself just to parley some votes doesn't shout CHANGE from politics as usual.

I'm traveling with Obama for two reasons: America loves the underdog, and his supporters are more attractive. I'm keeping my eyes on Hillary and McCain, though, and only the strongest, cheapest booze will keep me from covering this campaign exhaustively. Things won't really heat up until the conventions and the general election, but I promise I'll be your Man inside all the way through -- no matter how many airplane bathroom shits it takes.

-PBJ

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Peter Benjamin Johnson is a student at the William Randolph Hearst Internet School of Journalism. He is "covering" the democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News. At least, that's what he calls it.

Super Tuesday: IM Analysis

With the results of Super Tuesday still coming into place around them, we sat our political correspondents Peter Benjamin Johnson and Michael Gladstone in an internet chatroom and made them play nice.

These are the parts where they weren't swearing at each other, going to the bathroom, or talking about the cup girls.

---

On McCain:

Peter Benjamin Johnson: all this mccain business blew me away
Michael Gladstone: I was surprised, too. A month ago it seemed like Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee were fighting over who got to knock him out.
PBJ: i think that's what it was. mccain stayed positive.
MG: No, everybody was taking shots. McCain is just familiar. People recognize his name.
PBJ: like "bush"
MG: Or "Clinton."


On Obama and Clinton:

MG: This is why Democrats haven't gotten the presidency since Clinton. You can't even decide on a candidate without arguing amongst yourselves.
PBJ: don't lump me in with that crowd. i am a man with no country and no party.
MG: There's something to be said about the Republican winner-take-all primaries. Cutting down on candidates early gives the GOP time to really sell a candidate. Consistent name, consistent image, consistent message.
PBJ: like product placement
PBJ: COLA
PBJ: COLA
PBJ: COLA
PBJ: COLA
MG: What are you doing?
PBJ: COLA
PBJ: feeling thirsty?


On Huckabee:

PBJ: you're still going down with that ship, huh?
MG: I'm not "going down" on anything.
PBJ: nyuk nyuk nyuk
MG: I will admit that it's not always the right person who gets elected. That's been proven before.
PBJ: no way
PBJ: really?
PBJ: in AMERICA?
PBJ: the LAND of the FREEDOM?
MG: Huckabee has experience. He has proven leadership qualities.
PBJ: so does clinton
MG: Why do you have to be such a child?
PBJ: HEY
PBJ: children don't get this drunk
PBJ: they aren't wired for it.


On Money:

MG: Did you hear that Clinton's been digging into her own pockets to get money for her campaign?
PBJ: did i hear it?
PBJ: you forget where i am, gladstone
PBJ: you hear everything in the belly of the beast
MG: That doesn't make any sense.
PBJ: okay


On Music:

PBJ: i'm strangely touched by this video
PBJ: http://www.dipdive.com/
PBJ: touched in the most inappropriate ways
PBJ: involving my loins and freedom
PBJ: and scarlett johannsen
MG: Is that the guy from LOST?
PBJ: YES
MG: This is sentimental shtick.
PBJ: look at you
PBJ: getting yiddish in this bitch
MG: Do you want to see a video that will really inspire you?
PBJ: always
MG: Check out this video.
PBJ: als;kdjfsadjfa
MG: What?
PBJ: well done
PBJ: you have inspired me to kill myself

---

Peter Benjamin Johnson is a student at the William Randolph Hearst Internet School of Journalism. He is covering the democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News.

Michael Gladstone is a student at Our Lady of Holy Spirit College. He is covering the republican candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News.

Super Tuesday

RotN on the Campaign Trail
Peter Benjamin Johnson
Democratic Correspondent

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Super Tuesday is a week away and I'm in Wherethefuck, Missouri, recovering from all the action.

I've seen more states in the past two weeks than some proud Americans see in their lifetimes. Twenty-four states are having voting contests on Tuesday -- which, for those of you keeping score at home, is nearly half of the states in the Union. More than half the delegates that any one Democratic candidate needs to secure the nomination will be given out. Next week we could have a good idea of which candidate is going to be fighting the Party in Seat and which candidates are going to be receiving the long, throbbing shaft of American politics.

Clinton's in Florida, looking to parley some kind of favor with the other state that the DNC gave a big "fuck you," and Obama's in Kansas City, riding high on his endorsement from Ted Kennedy. Edwards is in Minnesota somewhere, but the maelstrom of celebrity and controversy that has attached itself to the Clinton-Obama rivalry has whipped him away like a fart in a thunderstorm. Somewhere beneath that well-coiffed hair of his the most reptilian parts of his political brain are slithering back and forth and whispering words like "endorsement" and "vice presidency." His campaign of fighting poverty and reconciling the "Two Americas" has been lost to the noise of Clinton-Obama battle being waged in the steel cage of middle America. Put on your foam fingers, raise your signboards, and call your bets -- somebody is going down.

* * *

It's hard to say exactly when Clinton and Obama decided to hate one another. Perhaps it was when his people jumped on the flap she made about Martin Luther King's legacy, or maybe it was when her husband started campaigning with (for?) her. Last night's State of the Union address, however, made it clear that they're not on friendly terms.

The State of the Union address is a strange ride. Imagine all the biggest, meanest, angriest dogs you can. Underfed rottweilers, beaten mastiffs, piss-poor pugs -- a big frothing pile of them that want nothing more than to rip each other to shreds. Now imagine that you lock them all in one big cage, with shock collars attached to satellites and beamed to 20 million homes across the country, and make them play nice. It's something like that -- cordial, courteous, and bubbling with decades' worth of hate right under the surface.

It was my first State of the Union and maybe my last, and I vowed to do it right-headed. This close to the mouth of the beast, you can't cower as it gapes open and ready to devour you; you can only stare it down, feign larger nuts, and say, "Open wide, Mr. President, and say ahh." I defend my use of hallucinogens.

Before the speech began and the drugs kicked in, I spotted Clinton and Obama on the floor. They stood almost back to back, shaking hands with the other politicos and smiling shock-collar smiles, and they refused to even acknowledge each other. This couldn't have been a mistake; they were close enough together that one whiff could have picked up the scent of blood on the other's breath.

Hours later, coming down on the road to Missouri, this image came back to me. My eyes flashed up to the rearview mirror and there, in the back seat, Clinton and Obama continued their war against courtesy.

OBAMA: Didn't see you there.
CLINTON: I didn't see you either.
OBAMA: You are not worth acknowledging.
CLINTON: You are not worth acknowledging, either. Acknowledgment is reserved for those who are not trying to invade my plans.
OBAMA: Agreed.
CLINTON: This race belongs to me.
OBAMA: I am going to destroy you.
CLINTON: I am going to break you.
OBAMA: You are going to die some day.
CLINTON: Death is an inevitability of life.

I turned up the radio and tried to focus on the road. The rental car vibrated in my hands and the stars danced above the headlights.

* * *

Room service comes with my bourbon and cheap cut of beef and I give the waitress a generous tip: don't go into politics.

* * *

Sober again and free from the constant waves of paranoia, I take my respite with a grim smile and a shot. From here, I don't know where I'll go; either west to meet up with Obama or east to catch the Clinton campaign. There's a lot riding on the upcoming contests, for the candidates and for the country that we'll be living in a year from now.

There's a lot of race left, and it's still a long ride to the bottom.

-PBJ

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Peter Benjamin Johnson is a student at the William Randolph Hearst Internet School of Journalism. He is covering the democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News. Past editors have repeatedly called him both "difficult" and "tall."

GOP in FLA

RotN on the Campaign Trail
Michael Gladstone
Republican Correspondent

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The journalists who hitched their wagons to Mike Huckabee's star are falling fast, down the steps of the Hilton and onto the sticky Orlando streets. They've got laptops, luggage, backpacks, and briefcases, and nearly all of them have cell phones pressed to their ears.

"A plane ticket," says a mustachioed man with a press badge on his blazer, "one-way or two, to Atlanta." There's a pause. "The bus? Have you ever been on a bus? I'm not covering this campaign with some weird disease sticking to my ass. This isn't the nineties, damn it!"

This is hours after one of Huckabee's advisers, Ed Rollins, told the press inside and outside the campaign that their travel and accommodation arrangements would no longer be made or paid for. There was a strong sense of duty and pride in his voice, like this was the only virtuous and Right thing to do. He and the other advisers and higher-ups put on strong, stern faces with tight smiles and told them that they would be forgoing their paychecks to benefit the cause. They remain strong, supportive, and hopeful.

A lot of the press, on the other hand, are very angry. A woman with a multi-colored peacock on her baseball cap throws her phone at a cab as it screeches away with another reporter inside. It shatters on the ground, she calls the cabbie and the journalist "ASSHOLES!," and the departing reported presses his against the window in her general direction.

For an evangelist, Huckabee doesn't seem to be inspiring much faith.

Some of us, however, have the faith. We've never lost it. I know that Huckabee is the right man for the job, because he's the only one who we can really trust to put the CHRIST back in CHRISTIAN NATION. He's an evangelist. He's a Christian. He's a Republican. He's all the things this country needs right now, when it is facing its greatest threats in decades. These other candidates claim to believe in the Trinity, but those are just words in the face of action. I mean, if a Democrat can say they believe in God, what stock can we put in simple words?

I pat the pocket Bible in my jacket, take a deep breath, and start walking to the bus station.

* * *

The Greyhound bus is cramped and odorous, but it will get me to Atlanta in time to catch Huckabee's campaign before he swings back into Florida. My editor refused to pay for the bus ticket, citing things like "budget" and "supreme idiocy," but I think it's important to keep up with the race. Politics is a full-contact sport. If I can't smell the sweat or see the contact of the blow, I might as well be watching it on television. I'm not here to watch the news; I'm here to put it out there.

While Huckabee is the most important candidate in the race, he's certainly not the only one. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain are all trying desperately to keep this a neck-and-neck(-and-neck-and-neck) race. The primaries are splitting between them like a teacher giving cookies to a second grade class -- everybody is happy they got a cookie, but everybody wants another one.

McCain took South Carolina from under Huckabee's nose. I don't think anybody could call this fair, but it's also not a huge surprise. After all, South Carolina isn't even a real state -- it's just a part of Carolina that everybody wants to make feel better about itself. I don't think it even has any delegates, just the bottom halves of them.

While the democrats are all sniping at each other, Giuliani is sniping at the real enemy of our time: the terrorists who attacked this country seven years ago. "America's Mayor" has spent most of his campaign focusing on three things: 9-11, 9-11, and September 11th. His humility and gravitas may be what led to a protest by 9-11 families and firefighters at rally in Florida. Or as I like to call them: terrorists.

Mitt Romney is leading in Florida, despite the fact that he is a pervert.

And then there's Ron Paul. Ah, Ron Paul. You never give up, do you, you funny little man? Paul is running as a Libertarian and a Constitutionalist, and also something of a literalist. As in, we should literally give everyone freedom to do as they choose. Everyone? That sounds a little like communism to me. And if there's one thing that isn't in the Bible or the Constitution, Ron Stal(in), it's communism.

The bus goes over a pot hole, but it doesn't slow down. The Greyhound, like the election, goes steadily on.

* * *

As we crossed into Georgia, I felt the air get thick with heat, oranges, and rhetoric. This bounce in the primary circuit is bound to be a heavy one. Florida is an important state -- Giuliani has skipped other primaries completely to concentrate his energy here -- but it's important to remember that it's only one of many. From here we'll be jumping around the entire country from California to Montana to Maine to wherever.

There are other Huckabee journalists staying in this hotel, a small one outside of Atlanta. The rooms are smaller than those at the Hilton, but they'll serve just as well. The stories aren't in here, anyway, they're out there -- at the rallies, the press conferences, in the entourages. There's excitement. There's intrigue. They don't call it the Grand Old Party for nothing.

In the South, the race is on.

-Michael Gladstone

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Michael Gladstone is a student at Our Lady of Holy Spirit College. He is covering the republican candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News. His independent folk-rock album, Jesus is The Man, is available from CDBaby and his backpack.

Surrounded in Michigan

RotN on the Campaign Trail
Peter Benjamin Johnson
Democratic Correspondent

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"Nevada?" I say. "What the hell are you doing in Nevada?"

"We're here for the primary," says someone who works for someone who works for John Edwards. Maybe she doesn't think her sarcasm will carry through the phone, because she certainly doesn't try to hide it. "Maybe you've heard of it?"

"The primary? Of course I've heard of it!" I shout. "The primary is here, in Michigan! I'm in the thick of it, man! This is where the Politics happens!"

"Who do you work for?" she asks, again.

"A very important news organization," I say. "I'm a political correspondent. I'm going to be following you on the campaign."

"Yes," she says, "you mentioned that. But what channel do you work for?"

I slam the telephone mouthpiece on the nightstand repeatedly. "No channel, woman! I write for the future!"

"Really."

"The internet! I write for very important people on the internet. Where is John Edwards? Can his handlers operate computers, or do you still preach the virtues of the abacus?"

"Maybe you haven't been following the news," she spits, "but Michigan is having their primary too soon. They broke the rules. We're skipping it."

"People in Michigan still vote, don't they? You're just going to write them off?"

"They aren't voting for president yet. Delegates are what are important now."

"Damn it, I know that," I say. "This whole thing reeks of desperation."

"What?" She says it like I just insulted her mother, or maybe her children. These campaign types, they defend their candidates like they've taken a Blood Oath. John Edwards might as well be her child or her mother or her husband, all of whom I'm certain she's thought of less in the last few months than the former senator from North Carolina.

"Aren't you just trying to flex a little DNC muscle?" I say. "That's what this is all about, right? You haven't had the White House in a decade, you just got the Congress back, and you want the American people to know that you can exercise some control over something besides a blowjob?"

"Who they hell do you think you are?"

"I'm a journalist," I say.

"I'm hanging up," she says.

"And a democrat," I say.

"I'm going to hang up the phone now."

"And a voter!"

"Goodbye," she says.

"See you in Nevada," I say.

The line goes dead. I push down the receiver and dial up room service.

"Room service? I'm going to need another bottle of bourbon, a sandwich, and the number for Capital City Airport. Yes, right away. I'm in it now, boy. I'm on the trail."

I scroll through my cell phone menu and pick out another number: OBAMA CAMPN CONTCT. I kick off my shoes and lay back on the bed. There's a mint on the pillow. I pop it in my mouth and chew my way through call waiting until I can get to a real person.

"Nevada?" I say, mintily. "What they hell are you doing in Nevada?"

* * *

An hour later I've got a 5 AM ticket on a flight to Carson City and I'm properly drunk to seriously consider this election. When the editor at Revenge of the News asked me if I would cover the democratic side of this election, I replied that there's nothing democratic about elections in this country. He said this was exactly the kind of perspective he was looking for. I missed Iowa while we negotiated salary, and New Hampshire while I waited the check to clear, but here I am in Michigan, four days early and two thousand miles wrong for the next democratic primary. No matter. This gives me time to get my head on straight. The hotel room is comped and the politics are happening.

The only problem is that I'm surrounded by Republicans on all sides. I can hear them in the streets, salivating and groaning and stroking their own members outside of too-long buses that say things like Huckabee: Faith. Family. Freedom. and Romney: True Strength for America's Future. on their sides. The campaign supporters are wearing flag pins on their lapels and instilling fear in the people of Michigan. Fear, that's the ticket. Fear is what wins elections. Fear is how people vote. Just shout: Immigrants, abortionists, liberals! Dear God, man, there are people in our own Senate who are all three!

I pull the shades closed and sit naked in the glow of Electronics. I have a television, a lap top, a cell phone, and a radio, all spewing information at me. On the television, Barack Obama is on a repeat of the Tyra Banks show, playing basketball. It's obviously something that the Tyra people pushed hard for but the Obama people were hesitant about, so it got worked down to five minutes right before the credits. He shoots twice, sinks one shot, and America gets a little more racist.

On the radio some analyst examines a recent comment that Hillary made about the civil rights movement, a monumentally unimportant move on her part. Nevertheless, it came to the forefront of the campaign this weekend. She did damage control on Meet the Press, saying that the Obama campaign was distorting what she had said. In a show of good faith, one of her supporters later brought up Obama's past admissions of drug use. Good clean fun for all.

On my computer screen, a squid fights a whale. This is how the election feels to me: Huge, Scary, Violent, and Wet.

I wish I could say that a part of me believed the mudslinging wouldn't start until after a nominee had actually been chosen, but I've been following politics too long for that. That part of me died long ago. This isn't about the presidency, not yet; now it's about the people. The petty, calculating, larger-than-life people who want to get enough leverage to grab this country by the balls, tell it what's what, and maybe do it a little good. In this country, that means ripping the other people to shreds. Image, image, image -- that's what matters now. And the candidates all know it.

The Republicans outside are shouting something that sounds an awful lot like "FOUR MORE YEARS," but I know that can't be right. In my heart of hearts, I know even that can't be right.

* * *

There are other political journalists staying in this hotel. I can tell by the semen stains I see on their pants as I pass them by the ice machine.

* * *

The plane is coming in early and the liquor is catching up with me, so I suppose my editor will want something about the candidates. Fine. I'm not endorsing anyone; at this point, I can't even say that I'm taking any of them very seriously.

HILLARY CLINTON: Not very pretty.

JOHN EDWARDS: Too pretty.

BARACK OBAMA: Just pretty enough, but in a way that scares a lot of middle America.

That's what you wanted, right? The image? The soundbite? Well, that's the last time. At the end of this year, we're going to have a new president, and I'll be damned if you're going to leave my coverage thinking that he or she is anything but a scum-sucking, ass-scratching, ego-maniacal politician. But maybe, just maybe, if we're all very lucky, he or she will seem a little more like an actual human being.

I'll see you in Nevada.

-PBJ

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Peter Benjamin Johnson is a student at the William Randolph Hearst Internet School of Journalism. He is covering the democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election for Revenge of the News. His first and only self-published book, Naked, Angry, and Paranoid, was well-received by an audience of some.